


along the woods: a legolas cycle

by betteroffbad



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, legolas - Fandom
Genre: Babies, milkwood, reader is a baby whaped in colth, the woods - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:41:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25453309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betteroffbad/pseuds/betteroffbad
Summary: legolas was riding along the woods and one day he found a babyyou were that baby
Relationships: Legolas Greenleaf/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	1. LEGOLAS WAS RIDING ALONG THE WOODS

LEGOLAS was riding along the woods when he saw a baby.  
You were that baby, wrapped in cloth and lying  
Legolas saw you, wrapped in cloth and crying in the woods alone  
Legolas said, Who left you here, little one?  
You were a baby and did not know. 

Along the woods Legolas saw a baby, whelped  
somewhere, soft mouth gaping  
in the caul of the woods' cool shadow lying  
all along the woods and crying

Legolas was the son of the Elven King  
You were a baby, wrapped and whining; still  
He saw you: that was your power

Legolas was young and beautiful  
The Elven King was old and beautiful  
Everyone they knew they had known for eons  
There had been no babies for 500 years  
Instead, there had been spiders.

The Elven King and his wife were old even for elves  
They missed the silly freedom of talking  
To a person with no vocabulary  
They kept large dogs but it wasn't the same  
In the forest even the spiders could talk

Legolas was riding along the woods  
Days on end, hardly resting  
Hoping to find what he did not know he hoped to find  
Until he saw you, clothed in cold  
Waiting to be picked up and named  


[YOUR NAME]

Legolas was riding along the woods  
The name of the woods was Milkwood  
Sap seeped like sticky milk from trees  
Elves could drink it at need, but you  
A baby, wrapped and crying in the woods  
Were clearly mortal. Legolas could tell  
by the way you howled: besides, no elf would leave a baby  
Alone in the woods and to die

Legolas picked you up; you were crying  
When Legolas picked you up, you stopped crying  
And Legolas gave you a name that was  


[YOUR NAME]. Legolas heard  
[YOUR NAME] in murmurs of the milkwood trees. Legolas said,  
[YOUR NAME], we are going to keep you.

He broke off a piece of the milkwood bark  
He gave it to you to suck the sap  
He did this without knowing if it was safe  
For mortals or how it might change you  
He did not stop to think at all.  
Sometimes the people who save you are careless  
Sometimes that is how they save you.


	2. MEAN/WHILE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mean While

Everything mean that happens while  
Everything vile that happens means  
Nothing much to the trees and snow  
Or the neighbors at home with their bedtime tea

Years went by in their glitter jeans  
Years like leaves in the doorway pile  
We watched TV with the sound down low  
While Legolas wept and tried to flee

Legolas was alone a long time  
Along the rim of the woods so seething  
Long he lingered wrapped and breathing  
Wool-wrapped and breathing in the milky rime

You were alone for a decade  
Alone and long in limb and waiting  
Whipped in the warp of your clothes and hating  
The whole rotten world when Legolas came

Legolas came riding, riding, up to the weft of the screen  
Legolas came riding to meet you; his kind bland face filled the screen  
When he held out his hand only you could see it, only you could be gathered in  
No one would ever believe you exactly  
No one would ever quite see what you mean

We walked to the mall from your stepdad's car  
And the sun burned hot and you thought you'd choke  
While somebody stumbled alone and far  
While somebody laughed at a stupid joke

Everything while it happened means  
Everything burns till it's cold and black  
Everything means that it happens while  
Everything lost must scramble back

Legolas took you in his arms  
Meanwhile the switch on the coffee pot  
Clicked and the coil lit up to warm  
All that is you and that you are not


	3. YOUR NAME IS GOING BE

From you like water  
Your name is going  
Like dew from milkwood leaves

From you, baby daughter  
Your name is flowing  
Down fingertips and sleeves

Your name is silver: be the birch  
Your name is perch and otter  
Be larksong bubbling and bright  
Be pebbles underwater

Your name was on you like a rash  
Your name was sneered and shouted  
Your name was going nowhere fast  
All heavy, rank, and haunted

But that was in another country  
Far from here and blighted  
Your name is clean and light as light  
Be loved, though uninvited


	4. CHORUS

We used to have this friend who was really into Legolas.  
Like she literally bought art from the Internet of her and Legolas together  
Only the artist didn't do a really great job so Legolas looks normal  
But she looks like her own great-grandmother or something  
Which when she saw it she was like, that's actually perfect  
Legolas was always obviously going to outlive me  
It's sad but I'm OK with it  
Like not all tears are an evil, you know?  
You know back in the olden days people lived longer  
Like how Strdier was 80 but he looked like a dad  
But now the world sucks so much we just shrivel up in an instant  
Like I don't think Legolas would care about that  
Any more than he'd care about lilacs or grass  
Like he'd notice and be sad and everything but it's what he's used to 

It's weird to be that into Legolas  
To always be thinking in terms of what he'd do  
If he was alive today, which she would be the first to tell you  
He totally could be  
If he wasn't made up  
And how do you know we aren't made up too?


	5. HOW COULD PEOPLE LEAVE A BABY

You got into your time machine  
You yanked the giant lever  
You left this stinking trashbag scene  
All sudden and forever

The dogs all yelping greasy-sad  
The babies in their pen  
A finger for your mom and dad  
You'll never see again 

You booked it back eleven years  
Four months and half a day  
You snuck into the hospital  
Where fat new babies lay

Your fingers traced the cribs and kissed  
Your heart wrenched free of shame  
A bracelet on a baby's wrist  
And on it was [YOUR NAME]

Who could leave a baby here?  
Not knowing what you know  
You're heavier than you expect  
But now it's time to go

Time, you ugly heirloom rug  
Come tear yourself to take her  
This helpless child asleep and snug  
Before the world can break her

You shoved the pop cans off the seat  
Your time machine to start  
You felt a restless rising heat  
The beating of your heart 

Was like the pounding of the hooves  
That fall so fast and strong  
When Legolas in shadow moves  
Through milky woods along

Who could leave her? Who would dare?  
So what if time gets mangled?  
Legolas will find her here  
His hair all bright and tangled


	6. THE SAME THING TO ME

Someone once told Legolas time heals all wounds  
Elves being what they are, it doesn't always work  
Memory is durable as the body is durable  
To save a life is not to save it from everything

The Dark Lord was persistent, elves being what they are  
No one knew who the Dark Lord was or what he really wanted.  
Maybe he thought Legolas needed to suffer to learn kindness  
Maybe he wanted to deepen the songs of the elves with shadow 

What use is a wood that hides no babies crying?  
What good is a brook that muffles no one's tears?  
Maybe he was like you, lost and crying, racked with power  
A baby no one found in the woods, alone in the woods too long.

One day, long after everything, you woke  
In your own old room and saw Legolas waiting  
Brighter than a new phone, his nose a perfect triangle  
You did not love him any more. You had grown up.

The broken arm had healed, with all your friends' names on the cast  
And some who were not friends, because you had to be nice.  
Terrible things happen sometimes, Legolas said. It's not your fault.  
There were no walls in his castle, only trees.

There were no guards in his castle, only trees  
Standing or leaning with old swords propped up against them  
Watching and lamenting the way the gods are said to  
Legolas said we could live in fear but we only have one life

Legolas never said anything you couldn't have said yourself  
Still, it was better to hear it from him  
Those blackout days dissolved midsentence like every dream always did  
You could kiss the empty air and feel nothing had really happened.


	7. US ALL THE BAD GUYS

[YOUR NAME] was an orphan  
her story's really sad guys  
they say she had a power  
to destroy us all the bad guys

there are days too dark for memory  
there are wounds too deep to whip-stitch  
she was legolas' sister  
or his girlfriend i forget which

there are powers you can call on  
in a hectic real-time melee  
but i guess hers were the wrong kind  
if they helped at all i can't say

there are days you follow orders  
for great justice or what have you  
there are days you're just a bastard  
man i don't know what to tell you

you want me to say her beauty  
and her kindness overthrew us  
but that's not the way we are, see  
we were orcs about it. sue us.


End file.
